"American Sniper" murder trial turns to defense

As the "American Sniper" murder trial in Texas turned to the defense, the prosecution rested its case against Eddie Ray Routh with new evidence Tuesday, showing a recording of the suspect in the back of a patrol car the night he was arrested. It was hours after Routh killed Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a Texas shooting range two years ago.

At times, Routh appeared calm. At one point, he even laid down. Use of the audio is restricted, but jurors heard how things quickly changed when police checked on Routh.

"I've been so paranoid and schizophrenic all day. I don't know what to even think of the world right now. I don't know if I'm insane or sane," Routh told the police in the recording.

The officer in the police cruiser suggested during testimony that Routh was purposely putting on a facade and was a man in control of his actions -- not someone, as his insanity defense claims, who did not know right from wrong.

According to CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman, who has tried insanity cases from both sides, it was a "very smart move" for the prosecution to show this video.

"It certainly looks like he is rational about talking about mental illness. He talks about being paranoid or schizophrenia -- sounds like a statement from a rational being, not from an insane person," Klieman said. "Also the police officer discusses that he was one way when there was a crowd around, and a different way when a crowd wasn't around."

The defense said Routh's paranoia was fueled by the rifles Kyle and Littlefield brought with them to the shooting range, one of which was emblazoned with the words "American Sniper."

Routh's attorneys called his mother to the stand. She said her daughter had called her the day of the shooting deaths and said she'd spoken to Routh, who claimed he killed two men. Routh's mother feared the worst.

"I had Chris' number in my phone," she told the court. "And I dialed that number praying to God that he would answer."

Klieman said the mother's testimony "helps the defense's insanity argument big time."

"One of the things that the mother says is that he was hospitalized with the VA three times. He came out with nine medications, including a medication for schizophrenia. She begged that he not be let out of VA, which shows us that he was suffering from severe mental illness - something, by the way, I don't think the prosecution can test," Klieman said.

For a solid insanity defense, Klieman said the defense will have to argue that, at the time he shot Kyle and Littlefield, Routh lacked the "substantial capacity to distinguish right from wrong."

"It's going to become a battle of experts in Texas about whether or not he really understood what he was doing wrong," Klieman said.

In fact, Routh's confession, which happened after that critical moment, may be somewhat irrelevant, Klieman said.